Brussels, 03/01/2006 (Agence Europe) - Following the breakdown of talks last week between Ukraine and Russia to try and reach agreement on the price of gas exports to Russia (Ukraine has been in dispute for several weeks with Gazprom, the Russian state-owned gas company, after Gazprom announced it was quadrupling the price of Russian gas for Ukraine to bring it in line with market prices, see EUROPE 9100), on Sunday Russia carried out its threat and cut off gas supplies to Ukraine. A spokesperson for Gazprom, Sergei Kuprianov, said on Sunday that the company had been forced to reduce pressure in the Ukraine gas pipeline network but said the total volume of gas exported was easy to calculate - being Europe minus Ukraine. Since it could not really cut off supplies to Ukraine, Gazprom decided to only allow gas for the European Union to transit through the gas pipelines in Ukraine. One after the other, EU countries noticed a fall in Russian natural gas supplies on Sunday. Poland, Hungary and Austria at first, and then the whole of central Europe had their supplies disrupted, but the European customers of Gazprom said on Tuesday morning that they were beginning to receive full supplies again following an increase on Monday in the volume of Russian gas transiting to Europe via Ukraine, following protests at the disruption in Russian gas supplies after Moscow withheld supplies on Sunday. On Tuesday lunchtime, Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland said their supplies were virtually back to normal.
Presiding over the Council of the EU from 1 January to 30 June 2006, Austria immediately welcomed the return of normal gas supplies from Russia, with the Austrian foreign minister Ursula Plassnik saying in a press release that Gazprom had made a move in the right direction and helped calm the situation. She said that the EU now expected Russia and the Ukraine to resume talks to reach a negotiated and sustainable solution. Plassnik regretted Gazprom's 'unilateral measures' in a continent where energy issues are closely connected and unilateral measures with serous implications in terms of security of supply in the region and EU Member States should be a thing of the past. EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said he was very concerned that the dispute between Russia and the Ukraine over gas prices had not been settled, but he said it was confident that sufficient gas would reach the EU from Russia. The Commissioner said he was delighted that Gazprom was due to resume talks on Tuesday with Naftogaz, adding that this was an encouraging sign, both because talks were resuming and in terms of gas supplies. A delegation from Ukrainian gas company Naftogaz was due to meet Gazprom officials on Tuesday. Piebalgs convened an emergency meeting of the Gas Coordination Group of EU Member States' energy ministry experts and representatives of the energy industry for Wednesday in Brussels.
A little later, European Commission spokesperson Johannes Laitenberger said the Commission had called on Ukraine and Russia to get back to the negotiating table. Laitenberger said the best solution possible would obviously be for the two sides to resolve the dispute themselves, but he said nothing had been decided and nothing had been ruled out in terms of possible action. He highlighted the need for a strengthened common EU approach to energy supplies and the fact the EU heads of state had instructed the European Commission at the Hampton Court Summit in October to look at precisely this issue. A Green Paper is currently being prepared on a common EU energy policy, and is due to be presented to the European heads of state at the Spring European Council later this year. Laitenberger refused to comment on Gazprom's accusations that Ukraine had stolen (illegally withdrawn) Russian gas. According to Ria Novosti, Russia sent a letter to the Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schusses on Tuesday officially demanding that the EU put pressure on Ukraine to get it to allow the unhindered transport of Russian gas exports to European purchasers and to abstain from illegal withdrawals. In response to a letter to both Ukraine and Russia on Saturday from the German, Austrian, Italian and French energy ministers, calling for EU Member States' supplies to be fully maintained, whether or not Russia and Ukraine actually manage to reach agreements, the Russian authorities say that Moscow is prepared to meet all its gas export commitments to the EU. It warned, however, that there would be a real threat of disruption of Russian gas supplies to the EU through the Ukrainian pipeline if Ukraine continued its unauthorised withdrawals (which Ukraine immediately denied).